Actionables for Issues that Matter
The impact of COVID 19 is transforming how we get work done.
Major shift from centralized home office to remote work going on;
Going to the main corporate office becoming thing of the past;
Teleworkers setting up telecommuting process & liking it.
Some new telecommuters may even leave the city altogether;
Teleworking setups mean fewer grueling commutes & time saving;
Telework is now accepted & trusted as part of work culture & society fabric
Drink up & often but know the condition & age of the pipes that brought it to you;
Overall the U.S. water supply is working but facing a new challenge —
a slimy growth inside the pipes of people’s residences & buildings..
Causing problems & a need for action in private homes & local water systems.
The source of concern is Biofilm, glue-like mixture of bacteria, fungi, amoebas & other microorganisms inside these home pipes.
It is living inside some of the 6 M miles of plumbing that support drinking, sanitation, hygiene, cooling & heating systems.
Found in home & industrial plumbing, hot tubs, recreational pools & water parks.
Is it enough? Is there something missing?
The horse drug, Lasix, has been banned at California race tracks in 2021.
The CHRB ban on Lasix seeks to show that the Industry is serious about horse safety.
Existing regs & Public Relations releases from track owners have yet to do it.
Some how this good start is still not enough transparency, trustworthy action, & oversight.
To date Ineffectual Industry leadership & organizational denial have prevailed.
No Central State or National racing authority exists to oversee & guide what seems to be a lost industry.
Further, industry horse pubs do not cover what is or is not happening before races at U.S. tracks in the barns & stalls.
The way that vehicle insurance rates are determined & quoted is changing. Have changed?
Policy holders are allowing underwriters to track, measure, & store their driving behavior & vehicle usage.
So User Based Vehicle Insurance is growing market in risk management.
Driving data from connected cars providing actual mileage use & behavior.
This data from new financial technology is enabling insurance companies to offer lower underwriting rates.
Your driving is being watched and recorded so put away your cell phone. Watch the road.
This is time when we all need all the support, love, and as much attention as possible.
So having a list that reminds you of some of the things you have made you who your are
Or will make you even better. richer, and more famous is timely.
You can quickly plow through the list to see which ones really apply to you.
May the “Ten” or 10 image will remind you that you are still a TEN.
Hopefully, the list will inspire, uplift, and propel you right into 2021
Your biggest and best year ever. Be Safe.
Black Women are about to matter more.
Black female entrepreneurs face a challenge when they try to raise to money.
The funding market is predominantly a white and male venture capital industry.
So venture capitalists have tendency to believe in & fund founders in this group.
But change is about to occur – women in sports, entertainment, and government leading movement to change.
Serena puts the ball in the Industry court..
The size, sources, & supply of lithium seems to be a “dirty little secret”
Conflicting reports on sourcing causing race to find a steady source of lithium
Lithium is the key component in rechargeable electric car batteries.
Almost every ounce of battery-grade lithium is imported to U.S. & Europe.
The U.S. goal for EV production prompts the urgency of getting a lithium supply unleashed in a mining boom.
Claims being made that the Race for “white oil” threatens to cause damage to the natural environment & price wars.
Lithium supply is set to triple by 2025.
Will the global electric vehicle market manage the supply & demands factors?
Finding, hiring, leading, and developing people is one the leading challenges of entrepreneurs and company founders.
The skill is not only to attract but determine in a short period of time if the individual sitting in front of you is the right fit.
Many startups and high-growth companies do not have a planned, structured and methodical process for evaluating prospective talent .
Some do not even have clear objectives other than “we need bodies; get them in here and hurry.
So it critical to the success of an enterprise to have a way, means, and systems of bringing the people & their skills on board.
Here are some solid guidelines from a very successful founder-entrepreneur and university business instructor, Mike Pochan. Carnegie Mellon’s Finest.
You do have the guts to understand your guts.
There are millions of micro-organisms or microbes that help keep the body healthy.
These controlling microbiomes are essential component of immunity & Keeping us from getting sick.
And they are functional entity that influences metabolism & modulates drug interactions.
Researchers are still seeking to determine connections between microbes & ones health.
Could take decades to really understand role of microbes in your gut.
So need for a lot of research, time, & study before popping probiotics viruses, & fungi.
It took vision & business acumen to see how junkyard cars were sale-able.
Willis Johnson saw a need & filled it with an e-commerce platform that made him a Billionaire.
The sale of the damaged vehicle is done entirely online by Copart. COVID has peaked revenue,
Further, some totaled vehicles become drive-able & repairable when sold overseas or other countries.
Copart did $2B in sales in 2020 from 234 lots and their stock jumped 150%,
You are your habits. A Creature thereof;
Maybe you do not see yourself as a leader but you are,
On what could be the largest or the smallest scale, you are the “Leader of You” if not a family, company or org.
So see if you can grab on to Sticking, Equipping, & Focusing– You will be an effective leader of all around you and YOU, Inc.
Seems that pretty much every one has a solution for some national problem.
If we asked, what would we hear from a group of on-the-ground experts about specific ideas to help address our most pressing problems?
From the economy, health care, education, social justice or climate change. Or peoples attitudes, positions, and self interest.
Here is a list of their responses to the question: “What is one thing you would do to fix America right now?” See their answers.
Prized fish are dying while seeking to reproduce. Study Finds out why.
Coho salmon keep dying in streams of Washington state every year.
Study by university scientists has discovered the cause of these fish deaths.
Road run off of car tire chemicals enter streams & waterways causing mass die-off of Salmon on West Coast.
Study has found one added highly toxic chemical in tires on the road washes off and is deadly to salmon.
Chemicals washed off roads is found on every single nearby spawning streams in the Northwest.
Solution is to remove the chemical 6PPD from the streams but no indication of action to do so or how yet
Collaborative Research involving the combined resource of a large medical firm & a university is focused on a Genetic medicine project
that is seeks to deliver care based on genomic medicine. This emerging field is called Genetic or precision medicine.
UCLA Medical & Regeneron have set up a exome genetic sequencing reach agreement.
Will focus on sequencing a collection of blood & tissue samples as part of genotyping effort.
Regeneron has developed World’s largest genetic database so is leading the field; UCLA has its own leadership position in medical technology..
More young race horses have been put down at race tracks in the U.S.
436 deaths nationally, with Los Alamitos, Golden Gate Fields, & Santa Anita reporting 84 total so far.
Injured young horses under age six whose muscular & bone structure are not completely developed are being put down.
Appears that the California legislature, California Horse Racing Boards, the Vets & the owners are ok with this death rate.
Public demonstrations do not seem to rouse outrage or concern by the general public.
And we thought Viet Nam was behind us, Not for the vets who served & persevered
Nam Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are apparently still not receiving proper VA benefits.
House & Senate passed National Defense Act seeks to cover benefits but slow to put bills together & implement.
Trump people apparently stalling the combining of two bills passes as part of National Defense bill.
Trump and Congressional leaderships seems to be sitting on the final bill.
Reconciliation of House & Senate bills is needed to pass NDAA legislation.
Thousands of Vietnam veterans still living with chronic health conditions.
Even if you are a successful investor & innovator, other management people may not really listen to your advice and experience.
Getting people listen to you can often be challenging.
So what about the counsel in this book for directors on corporate boards?
How is being on a company management team like being on a Corporate Board?
Getting attention, inclusion, & credibility applies to company boards, management meetings, committees, & even consultants.
Rarely is the role of directors & even consultants spelled out by companies.
User Based Insurance is catching on with Underwriters .
Underwriting rates based on real driver behaviors data..
Usage-based insurance is being adopted by major vehicle underwriters,
Metromile uses artificial intelligence & machine learning technology lead the way.
Major vehicle insurance companies using AI and Machine learning to set rates
Companies like Metromile are putting connected devices in vehicles. Then uses generated driver data to personalize quotes.
Remember seeing Spot moving boxes & materials around and looking cool?
Robots like the signature dog have been developed by Boston Dynamics in the last 28 years.
The Boston Dynamics enamored Google, Softbank, and now Hyundai to seeks to buy the company for $1B.
Meantime, BD’s robots are known for fluid movements & human like machines including Spot, the Robot Dog, a You Tube sensation.
Nobody knows what Hyundai will do with BD. Maybe talk of a Walking cars is being taken seriously.
GM intends to continue to be a global automotive source & brand.
So GM is transitioning to & investing heavily in electric vehicles.
In the next 5 years, seeks to be the major source of EV cars & trucks.
Investing $27B by 2025 & set to take on Tesla.
Seeks to refashion itself as a mobility company of the future.
EV revolution could trigger the eventual AV revolution in vehicle market.
This a new and different kind of contact tracing — Social Contact Tracing
And here is how you do it.
Find and call someone you care about, need, or bond. Make one call a day.
You can even email or text someone you care about or want to hear from.
Or expand Your “Bond Width”. Be a Social Contact Tracer & make some calls.
Just ask questions, be up, and then listen. If they don’t pick up. Leave cheery message. Call again tomorrow.
GM Onstar is getting into vehicle insurance underwriting.
GM knows from years of previous under writing that big challenge is to know the driver habits of the policy holder.
So is leveraging data generated by cars to re-establish its auto-insurance business.
This will provide rating data for car-insurance based remote tracking of drivers’ behavior.
So can set rates based on data that other competitors do not have.
GM or Onstar then uses this driver behavior data to set lower insurance rates.
And you thought your junk mail was just going to degrade in some landfill — Not the case.
All that paper trash you have been throwing out because COVID has forced you to work at home is being recycled
People working at Home are producing junk paper to be recycled into new paper products.
So paper Industry has found this Junk mail can be substitute source for recycling. More cash for trash
No longer– California Here I Come. Rather many long time residents of the State of California & their companies are moving out of state.
VC and mid sized companies are moving to places considered to not have California constraints.
Texas deemed to provide new & better opportunities without the problems & “baggage” California seems to have.
An Op Ed in the WSJ prompts this digestion & discussion of California issues that is worthy of action by the state government.
There is no real need to defund the budgets of local police & law enforcement.
What seems a better way to go for cities is instead create public safety departments.
The new consolidated protective services includes police, fire, & emergency medical services into one dept.
Using Cross training and coordinated functions this integration of departments is working. Budgets are one for all departments
